Kandia Johnson transformed her
life from working as a corporate communications and learning
consultant for a Fortune 500 company to founder of Kandid
Conversations LLC, a communications consulting and training
company.

Leveraging her 15 years of
experience working with senior leaders and employees from companies
such as Deloitte Consulting, Johnson & Johnson, and The U.S.
Navy, Kandia started her own company to teach executives and
entrepreneurs how to stand out, get noticed and become influential
leaders in their fields. Through a series of leadership development
workshops and one-to-one coaching, she’s helped her clients land
executive positions, launch global awareness campaigns, land TV
segments, and speaking engagements.

Beyond being featured in Forbes,
Business Insider, Black Enterprise, and more, Kandia has delivered
presentations on stages throughout the United States and Africa. To
date, she’s been invited to speak at conferences and events for
influential brands such as The South by Southwest (SXSW)
Conference, Harvard University Business School, Williams Sonoma,
The James Beard Foundation, The WIE Symposium and African Women in
Technology.

Tapping into her sweet spot for
amplifying the voices of female hidden figures—women who are
under-served, underestimated and underrepresented, Kandia launched
'The She Deserves More Project', a mentorship program to help women
gain confidence, make connections and break barriers in life and
business.

The 3 take-aways from this
episode are:

We hold ourselves back when we
don’t know how to tell our career story. We fail to personalize our
successes, we fail to use words that convey action, and we fail to
quantify our impact. This matters when you’re leading in color
because you cannot get approval for programming without being able
to make the business case and convey you are the best person to
lead the efforts.

We have to get clear on what management defines as success. If
our managers don’t set expectations with us, we have to ask. This
matters when you’re leading in colors because not every environment
is going to be ready or willing to cultivate positive experiences
using diversity, inclusion and social consciousness as the lens. If
this is important to you, you cannot stay in an environment who
will not commit to it and who will not support your growth.

We have practice and prepare. At every stage of our career and
for every moment we need to show up and be fully present for, we
have practice and prepare. Kandia suggests writing things out then
editing yourself to make sure your message if confident and clear.
This matters when you’re leading in color because cultivating
positive workplaces is an intentional activity. And anything
successful we do with intention has to be something we practice and
prepare for.

Kandia is offering her
Confidence Guide FREE to the Leading In Color podcast listeners. Go
to Apple Podcasts, Spotify or Google Podcasts, subscribe to Leading
In Color then take a screenshot of your subscribed status and email
it toleadingincolorpodcast@gmail.comand I will send you the link to
download the Confidence Guide.

Also, here's LINK to the Level
Up Your Career webinar that Kandia and I did with The
Memo:

Thank you for listening to
Episode 4 of the Leading in Color podcast. Be sure to take
advantage of this freebie AND connect with Kandia on Twitter,
Facebook and LinkedIn at @kandiajohnson and on Instagram
@kandij

Connect with Leading in Color at
@leadingincolorpodcast on FB and Instagram and @leadingincolor on
Twitter. I’d love your feedback and questions at my emailleadingincolorpodcast@gmail.comand of course I want you to
subscribe, rate and review the podcast on Apple Podcasts, Google
Podcasts and Spotify.

About the Podcast

Leading in Color is a bi-weekly podcast about cultivating intentional, positive workplace experiences and environments. From recruiting and hiring, to training and development, to coaching and discipline, to policy and strategy, to trends and hot topics. Leading in Color tackles each area thru a lens of diversity, equity, fairness and inclusion. Leading in Color also highlights the unique challenges and cutting-edge creativity of leading with social consciousness in the corporate world.
Join our host, Sarah Morgan, as she navigates these conversations in solo and guest interview episodes to provide practical advice and simple action steps for success.